On Demand Billing

Oracle no longer supports the Off Cycle Billing feature introduced in Oracle Revenue Management and Billing Version 2.2.4.2. Instead, the On Demand Billing feature has been introduced to facilitate adhoc billing. Earlier, you were only able to carry out billing based on the bill cycle (defined for the account). In other words, you were able to generate a bill for a bill cycle using the billable charges whose start and end dates fall within the bill cycle. However, there might be situations where you have received certain billing information after the bill is generated for the bill cycle. In such scenarios, you would like to generate a separate bill for the newly created billable charges. The system now allows you to generate an adhoc bill. However, note that you cannot generate adhoc bills through the Bill screen.

A bill is generated using the billable charges. Now, in order to differentiate between the normal and adhoc billable charges, you need to set the Adhoc Bill flag for the billable charges. If the value of the Adhoc Bill flag is set to Y, the system will consider the billable charge during adhoc billing. And, if the value of the Adhoc Bill flag is set to N, the system will consider the billable charge during regular billing based on the bill cycle.

A new batch named Adhoc Billing (C1-FABL) is created which generates adhoc bills. Both, automatically generated and manually created billable charges (with the Adhoc Bill flag set to Y) are considered during adhoc billing.

With Oracle Revenue Management and Billing V2.4.0.0.0, the On Demand Billing feature has been enhanced to facilitate billing for multiple usage data files in one go. Till now you were only able to create billable charges and bill for only one usage data file at a time using the using the On Demand Billing screen. However, there might be situations where you want to upload multiple usage data files and generate billable charges for the usage records (of a single or multiple accounts) that you may want to group together based on certain criteria. For example, you may want to generate billable charges for all debit transactions of one or more accounts. In such scenarios, you can now upload multiple usage data files using a file group and create billable charges for the records uploaded through the Usage Data Processing screen. You can create file groups based on various criteria to upload multiple usage data files. For example, you may want to create a file group for uploading usage data files of accounts that need to be billed for the services to be charged for using the credit card facility. You can create a file group using the On Demand Billing screen. You can then upload one or more usage data files using the file group through the Usage Data Processing screen. Oracle Revenue Management and Billing provides you with a facility to upload usage data received from various product processors or banking applications for billing. You can upload a usage data file in the CSV format. The Usage Data Processing screen allows you to upload usage data files for both banking and insurance modules. You need to ensure that the CSV file is in the required format; otherwise the file will not be uploaded in the system. For more information about the CSV file format, see CSV File Format for Banking and CSV File Format for Insurance. When you upload a usage data file, mapping algorithm parses the flat file in the CSV format and maps the columns in the CSV file to an XML schema named Interface. The validation process starts immediately after the file is uploaded in the system. During the validation process, the system and custom validations (if any) are executed. The status of each usage record is changed to Valid or Invalid depending on whether the usage record was validated successfully or not. Once a usage record is successfully validated, you can submit the valid records and create billable charges for them. Once the usage data files are uploaded and billable charges are generated through the Usage Data Processing screen, you can then create and freeze the bills using the On Demand Billing screen.

You can optionally configure the system to use the approval workflow process for a usage data file. On submitting a valid record, the approval workflow process routes the usage record to the approver for approval. The approver receives a notification to approve the valid records. The approver can either approve or reject one or more valid records. Once the approver approves a valid record, a billable charge is created for the usage record. However, if the approver rejects a valid record, a notification is sent to the submitter to resolve the usage record. The submitter can then correct the existing data or add missing data (based on the review comments), and can again submit the valid record for approval. Once the valid record is approved, a billable charge is created for the usage record.

The system generates the bills based on the Bill After Date. The Bill After Date indicates the date after which adhoc or normal bills must be generated. In case of adhoc billing, the Bill After Date is specified for a file group using which you can upload one or more usage data files.

Once the adhoc or normal bills are generated for a usage data file, you can freeze and complete the bills. Oracle Revenue Management and Billing provides you with the ability to freeze and complete adhoc bills generated for a usage data file from the On Demand Billing screen.

During the on demand billing process, each usage record of a file goes through various statuses until it is billed to the person. For more information about the usage record statuses, see Usage Record Status Transition.

Related Topics

Parent Topic: Oracle Revenue Management and Billing Financial Services Business Processes